This was my first-time attempt to image the not-so-frequently-imaged "Lost Galaxy," and it was fraught with problems, mostly caused by lots of thin clouds combined with a waxing Moon early in the session. These things made it hard to find the target and hard to autofocus. Eventually I just fell back to my old focusing routine and shut the autofocus off. I don't know if they went back to a different autofocus algorithm in Sequence Generator Pro 2.5.1.12 or if it was just lack of brighter stars around this target, but autofocus did not work nearly as well for me as the routine in 2.5.1.10 seemed to. I threw out lots of subs because the clouds washed them out, but was surpised to get as much as I did out of this image despite the lack of sufficient integration. I am not tiring of imaging galaxies. The barred spiral shape of this one attracted me to this target.
Date: 12-13 May 2016
Subject: NGC 4535, the Lost Galaxy or McLeish’s Object
Scope: AT8IN+High Point Scientific Coma Corrector
Filter: Baader Planetarium UHC-S
Mount: EQ-6 (EQMOD)+PEC
Guiding: Orion ST-80 + Antares 0.5x focal reducer + DSI Ic + PHD 2.6.1.1 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc, no chiller CCD 5 °C
Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 2.5.1.12 with Nebulosity 4.0.4 ASCOM camera driver
Exposure: 12x600 s
Stacking: Neb 4, bad pixel map, bias included, 33 flats, match histograms, trans+rot align, Deep Sky Stacker 1.5σ κ-σ stack without drizzle.
Processing: StarTools 1.4.316: Crop; Wipe; Develop: 80.00%; HDR
ptimize; Color:Scientific, 200% saturation, red bias reduce 1.35; Deconvolute: 2.6 pix; Track: Smoothness 87%, 4.5 pix; Magic, shrink 2 pix. Photoshop CS6 + Astronomy Tools: Deep space noise reduction; layer masked Levels; Increase star color; Astroframe.
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